10. The Black Count, Tom Reiss

Alexandre Dumas is famous for writing The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, but his father’s life was in its way as epic as either of those books. He was the son of a minor French nobleman and a Haitian woman, and he became famous early on for his physical strength, good looks and astounding courage under fire. In the relatively racially liberated climate of the French Revolution, Dumas rose to the rank of Brigadier General under Napoleon, only to be imprisoned by monarchists, which led to his early death. Tom Reiss wrings plenty of drama and swashbuckling action out of Dumas’ strange and nearly forgotten life, and more: The Black Count is one of those quintessentially human stories of strength and courage that also sheds light on the flukey historical moment that made it possible.

Yes we gave this book a very favorable review earlier in the year: http://aalbc.com/reviews/black-count.html "Napoleon also made sure to have Dumas erased from the history books, a
disservice belatedly undone thanks to the efforts of Tom Reiss, author of
The Black Count. Reiss devoted a half-dozen years to painstaking research to
the project, unearthing a cornucopia of astonishing information from dusty
archives en route to penning a revealing and compelling page-turner about an
unsung icon that time somehow forgot."